i wasn't born in a barn, but i got there as fast as i could.

I should’ve put this in my post yesterday! I’m clearly a little slow. But this is the turn we were trying yesterday: jump in the first one, then tight rollback right to the rail in front of some standards that were in the way (represented by the white X). We fiddled with our track quite a bit, so these arrows really just give the gist of what direction we were generally aiming to go.

How would you have approached this exercise, both pace and track-wise? What skills would you want in your toolbox to tackle this?

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22 thoughts on “Wordless Wednesday- Rollback of Death”

Hello, strong outside rein! LOL 😉
Sounds like a shoulder control exercise to me. Whenever I feel like I lose control of the outside shoulder, I do lots of square turns (if that’s even their name?). Where you think about doing a 90 degree turn on a square instead of riding on a circle.

You nailed it right on the head- this was so totally a shoulder control exercise!!! Holding that stronger outside rein at the counter helped immensely, and I really need to strengthen my leg and get her more sensitive to that so we can use the outside rein more to help her move over and stay straight when the jumps go up and we get excited. We’ll be adding square turns to our repertoire 🙂
Oooohh boy, Addy has no idea what she’s in for hehe

My Trainer has forced me to do similar exercises because Fiction is so big he just throws himself into his turns and it is super out of control. Turning my shoulders works so well. Trainer recently had me, on a circle at the trot, turn my shoulders in for two strides, out for two strides, repeat. And she told me to really exaggerate the motion, because at times I would think my shoulders were turned, but they weren’t! Also lots of supportive inside leg, open inside rein, closed outside leg to prevent horse shoulder bulge, etc.

Tight turns are the worst, but once you master them you can do so many things!

I love the big horses, but it does make it a little harder to turn! I should definitely practice exaggerating the motion with my shoulders, I think I tend to look where I’m going and not follow with my body. We will triumph! (eventually)

We just did square turns about two weeks ago! You might also want to Google the rider Richard Spooner for inspiration. He won the Del Mar National last weekend and he shaves off jump off times by doing quick turns.

Once I thought about it a bit more, this is what I realised the setup probably looked like. It is the same exercise my trainer had me do a few years ago when I leased a different horse — an ottb who pretty much couldn’t turn right (we called him Zoolander for a long time because of that) and generally had a really poor turning radius. We only did it over a little x — nothing big. In my case, all my problems stemmed from my inclination to collapse into a fetal position when I thought something was hard, so I had to approach this sitting really straight up and stretch down really deep in my stirrups. I also cheated a little and came at the X in a way that I was pointed slightly away from the wall so I had more time to make the turn. For me, instead of counter bending to get the tight turn I had to really push Quincy into a strong outside rein with my inside leg, and keep the inside rein for flexion.

Were I doing this exercise with Murray, I would want to keep him slightly under the pace I prefer for jumping as he tends to get a little on the forehand upon landing. That would make it easier for me to rock him back onto his haunches and make the turn. He’s much more nimble and bendy than Quincy was, so I’d probably avoid turning him to the outside too strongly, lest he drift through that inside shoulder.

Anyway, I just asked my trainer to set up something like this for next week’s course because we haven’t done this exercise in a while!!

I’m LOL-ing at the horse called Zoolander. It was definitely tough to make the track- if we sliced too much or pointed away too much then it made the turn in front of the standards that much harder. Getting DragonMare worked up and over the pace definitely didn’t help as well. I’d love to hear how you and Murray approach this next week!

definitely looks tough! my mare is small and catty and always lands on her right lead, so i think she could probably do it … but it would be a serious struggle to the left. i’d have to really get her canter teeny tiny but super organized and with impulsion – ride all the way to the base and try for the lead over the fence, and create a wall with my outside aids to turn her… tricky business!!

Your girl has such awesome moves! Bouncy tiny canter makes everything better…still trying to convince the big fat draftX of that. I’ve got so many exercises from these comments so I can strengthen my outside aids and make it a total brick wall 🙂